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Secret reunion brings a hug for Hicks and father

FORMER Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks was secretly reunited
with his father yesterday, then spoke publicly for the first time,
offering just a handful of words: "I'm doing fine."

The 32-year-old hugged his father, Terry, after meeting him for
the first time since he was taken from prison to a secret suburban
location.

Terry Hicks introduced his son to The Age after the
newspaper discovered the meeting. Hicks was pale-faced and
well-spoken with a deep voice. He shook hands in greeting. But in
what is believed to have been his first meeting with a reporter
since his arrest in Afghanistan six years ago, he also appeared
intense, nervous and distrustful around someone he did not
know.

Since his release from an Adelaide prison on Saturday, Hicks has
been adjusting to life as a free man, trying to enjoy it while also
moving from house to house and trying to avoid being recognised. In
the middle of an Adelaide heatwave, he has been for a swim, one of
the things, along with a beer on the beach, he had most looked
forward to.

He has been moving cautiously around the community and has gone
out more than once wearing a cap without being recognised, although
he has attracted a couple of glances.

"He has had a chance to get out and do his own thing," Terry
Hicks said. "He hasn't harmed anyone."

Hicks deferred to his father during the meetings, telling The
Age he was doing well but declining to answer questions because
of fears about the repercussions of breaching the gag order imposed
on him as part of the plea deal he made with the US military.

Terry Hicks said the US military had embedded a deep fear in his
son — irrational considering it is unlikely that the US could
enforce its demands — and he feared being sent back to
Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Hicks said his son, who was released from Yatala after
serving a nine-month sentence imposed on him by the US military,
needed more "breathing space" before other media learned of his
whereabouts.

He asked that people not try to track his son down. "David is
asking for time. He is not confident enough to talk fully to the
media as yet — this (meeting) was just a lucky
coincidence."

Mr Hicks said he had asked not to be told where his son was
staying and had received a phone call seeking the reunion.

Hicks was expected to go to the Port Adelaide police station
yesterday for his first day of reporting under the terms of an
Australian Federal Police control order, but he evaded media and
reported elsewhere. On Saturday he slipped undetected into the Port
Adelaide station to be fingerprinted hours after being released,
but after reporters gathered at the station from 6am yesterday
— the time Hicks' night curfew ended — his plans were
changed.

Hicks is being shielded by supporters and may be moved from
house to house to prevent detection while he rebuilds trust in
people and confidence in himself.

His former lawyer, Stephen Kenny, who was the first lawyer
allowed to visit a detainee inside the US military's Guantanamo Bay
prison in Cuba, said procedures used there breached the Geneva
Convention and were intended to break people.

"The real issue was the manipulative control exercised by the
jailers that were designed to break people, and have done quite
successfully," Mr Kenny said. "They exercised minute control over
people and the biggest and most damaging thing they could do was
put them in solitary confinement."

Mr Kenny said he had witnessed Hicks' deterioration at
Guantanamo Bay after he was placed in solitary confinement.

Hicks, who withdrew formal allegations that he had been tortured
as part of his plea agreement with the US military, spent almost
half of his 5½ years at Guantanamo Bay in solitary confinement
and will receive counselling to deal with its effects.

Mr Hicks said his son told him yesterday he was taking small
steps but knew he needed psychiatric support, which he would begin
early this year.

He said his son's concern to avoid detection was based on his
lack of confidence and poor social skills after being held in
military detention for so long.

He said his son was to be taken to another location last night.
"I still don't know where he is. You people came across us by
accident."

Mr Hicks, who spoke quietly and calmly to his son, who shares
his stocky build and piercing blue eyes, said David suffered from
anxiety and had taken three days to recover from an incident in
early November when he was taken by federal police to the Holden
Hill police station in the back of a van. Mr Hicks said David had
suffered extreme anxiety in the van and had felt as though he was
back at Guantanamo Bay. As a result of his anxiety, the trip was
aborted.

Hicks had hoped to read a statement of thanks on his release on
Saturday but was unable to go through with it, leaving it to his
lawyer David McLeod to read it to the media.

"The best way for David to handle all this is to lay low for a
bit longer," Mr Hicks said. "I know there are people out there who
want to talk to him but it's going to achieve nothing."

Hicks is understood to be concerned about the circumstances of a
reunion with his children, Bonnie, 14, and Terry, 12, whose mother,
Jodie Sparrow, has hired an agent and is believed to be keen to
make money out of her connections. Ms Sparrow appeared with her
children on Channel Nine's Sixty Minutes program in May and
was reported to have done another deal with Nine.

Hicks is keen to see his children, whose photos he had in his
cell at Guantanamo Bay and who have visited him in prison, but he
is wary of being exposed to the media if he does so.

Mr Hicks said his son would face the media eventually but needed
time to heal. "It will take some time and the media and the public
have got to be aware of that," he said. "He wants at the moment to
just lay as low as possible without the media knowing where he
is."

Hicks will not appear in court when the interim control order
obtained by federal police returns to the Federal Magistrates Court
for confirmation on February 18 but it is understood his lawyers
will seek to reduce the reporting provisions from three times a
week to once.